The Waiting Room - Very Good, Based on 4 Critics

PopMatters - 80Based on rating 8/10

80

Ten years later and we are still commending the Postal Service’s single album, Give Up. That’s not a statement of incredulity; rather, a statement of disbelief. When songs are chewed up and spat out with the rapidity of a microwave lunch, ten years is an eternity to still give a damn about an album of electro-pop. But enough about the Postal Service—I did not come to praise it, I came to bury it in the wake of Lusine’s The Waiting Room.

With over a decade of experience under his belt, Jeff McIlwain knows his way around a studio. As with every album preceding it, The Waiting Room is his most sparklingly professional release yet. That doesn't mean the Seattle, WA-based producer's wealth of experience and talent resulted in his most challenging work. Rather, his first album since 2009 is camped on the pop side of electronic music.

After taking a break from recording as Lusine to score the film projects Snow Angels, Linewatch, and The Sitter, Jeff Mcilwain returned to creating electronic music for Ghostly, for 2013's The Waiting Room. Whereas the albums prior to 2009's A Certain Distance had an understated ambient vibe, he goes for a bigger production on this outing, enlisting guest vocalists on five of the songs. On some numbers, he incorporates a clever trick, and processes the vocals so heavily that it takes the human element out of the singer's voice.

Though they contained plenty of electronic bliss, many of Seattle producer Jeff McIlwain's past albums as Lusine had a certain restlessness—they always seemed determined to wriggle free of conventional structures. This might suggest a feeling of discontent on his part—after all, why try and invent something new if you're happy with the way things are? By contrast, his eighth Lusine album feels like a very contented record indeed. The Waiting Room mostly glows with warm satisfaction, free of the melancholy that coloured albums like 2007's Language Barrier.Yet even if The Waiting Room is his most conventional album to date, McIlwain hasn't entirely abandoned his more experimental airs.